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Moral training neglected.-Precept.--Example.

This education of the heart is confessedly too much. neglected in all our schools. It has often been remarked that "knowledge is power," and as truly that "knowledge without principle to regulate it may make a man a powerful villain!" It is all-important that our youth should early receive such moral training, as shall make it safe to give them knowledge. Very much of this work must devolve upon the teacher; or rather, when he undertakes to teach, he assumes the responsibility of doing or of neglecting this work.

The precept of the teacher may do much toward teaching the child his duty to God, to himself, and to his fellow-beings. But it is not mainly by precept that this is to be done. Sermons and homilies are but little heeded in the school-room; and unless the teacher has some other mode of reaching the feelings. and the conscience, he may despair of being successful in moral training.

The teacher should be well versed in human nature. He should know the power of conscience and the means of reaching it. He should himself have deep principle. His example in every thing before his school, should be pure, flowing out from the purity of his soul. He should ever manifest the tenderest regard to the law of right and of love. He should never violate his own sense of justice, nor outrage that of his pupils. Such a man teaches by his example. He is a "living epistle, known and read of all." He teaches, as he goes in and out before the school, as words can never teach.

Conscience can be cultivated.-How?

The moral feelings of children are capable of systematic and successful cultivation. Our muscles acquire strength by use; it is so with our intellectual and moral faculties. We educate the power of calculation by continued practice, so that the proficient adds the long column of figures almost with the rapidity of sight, and with infallible accuracy. So with the moral feelings. "The more frequently we use our conscience," says Dr. Wayland, "in judging between actions, as right and wrong, the more easily shall we learn to judge correctly concerning them. He who, before every action, will deliberately ask himself, 'Is this right or wrong?' will seldom mistake what is his duty. And children may do this as well as grown persons." Let the teacher appeal as often as may be to the pupil's conscience. In a thousand ways can this be done, and it is a duty the faithful teacher owes to his scholars.

By such methods of cultivating the conscience as the judicious teacher may devise, and by his own pure example, what may he not accomplish? If he loves the truth, and ever speaks the truth; if he is ever frank and sincere; if, in a word, he shows that he has a tender conscience in all things, and that he always refers to it for its approval in all his acts,what an influence does he exert upon the impressible minds under his guidance! How those children will observe his consistent course; and, though they may not speak of it, how great will be its silent power upon the formation of their characters! And in future

Evil example to be dreaded.-Consequences.

years, when they ripen into maturity, how will they remember and bless the example they shall have found so safe and salutary.

Responsibility in this matter cannot be avoided. The teacher by his example does teach, for good or for evil, whether he will or not. Indifference will not excuse him; for when most indifferent he is not less accountable. And if his example be pernicious, as too often even yet the example of the teacher is; if he indulges in outbreaks of passion, or wanders in the mazes of deceitfulness; if the blasphemous oath pollutes his tongue, or the obscene jest poisons his breath; if he trifles with the feelings or the rights of others, and habitually violates his own conscience, -what a blighting influence is his for all coming time!

With all the attachment which young pupils will cherish even toward a bad teacher, and with all the confidence they will repose in him, who can describe the mischief which he can accomplish in one short term? The school is no place for a man without principle; I repeat, THE SCHOOL IS NO PLACE FOR A MAN WITHOUT PRINCIPLE. Let such a man seek a livelihood anywhere else; or, failing to gain it by other means, let starvation seize the body, and send the soul back to its Maker as it is, rather than he should incur the fearful guilt of poisoning youthful minds and dragging them down to his own pitiable level. If there can be one sin greater than another, on which heaven frowns with more awful displeasure.

Trample not on the mind.-Religion our glory-our hope.

it is that of leading the young into principles of error and the debasing practices of vice.

"Oh, wo to those who trample on the mind,

That deathless thing! They know not what they do,
Nor what they deal with. Man, perchance, may bind
The flower his step hath bruised; or light anew
The torch he quenches; or to music wind
Again the lyre-string from his touch that flew ;-
But for the soul, oh, tremble and beware

To lay rude hands upon God's mysteries there!"

Let then the teacher study well his motives when he enters this profession, and so let him meet his responsibility in this matter as to secure the approval of his own conscience and his God.

IV. The teacher is to some extent responsible for the RELIGIOUS TRAINING of the young.

We live in a Christian land. It is our glory, if not our boast, that we have descended from an ancestry that feared God and reverenced his word. Very justly we attribute our superiority as a people over those who dwell in the darker portions of the world, to our purer faith derived from that precious fountain of truth—the Bible. Very justly, too, does the true patriot and philanthropist rely upon our faith and practice as a Christian people for the permanence of our free institutions and our unequaled social privileges.

If we are so much indebted, then, to the Christian religion for what we are, and so much dependent upon its life-giving truths for what we may hope to be,—how important is it that all our youth should be nurtured under its influences. !

Avoid sectarianism.-Common ground.-Exemplified.

When I say religious training, I do not mean sectarianism. In our public schools, supported at the public expense, and in which the children of all de nominations meet for instruction, I do not think that any man has a right to crowd his own peculiar notions of theology upon all, whether they are acceptable or not. Yet there is common ground which he can occupy, and to which no reasonable man can object. He can teach a reverence for the Supreme Being, a reverence for his Holy Word, for the influences of his Spirit, for the character and teachings of the Savior, and for the momentous concerns of eternity. He can teach the evil of sin in the sight of God, and the awful consequences of it upon the indi vidual. He can teach the duty of repentance, and the privilege of forgiveness. He can teach our duty to worship God, to obey his laws, to seek the guidance of his Spirit, and the salvation by his Son. He can illustrate the blessedness of the divine life, the beauty of holiness, and the joyful hope of heaven;—and to all this no reasonable man will be found to object, sc long as it is done in a truly Christian spirit.

If not in express words, most certainly his life and example should teach this. Man is a religious being. The religious principle should be early cultivated. It should be safely and carefully cultivated; and, as this cultivation is too often entirely neglected by parents, unless it is attempted by the teacher, in many cases it will never be effected at all.

Of course all those points which separate the com

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